Arachnophobia
by LadyPineTree
Summary: Waxer and Boil have an uninvited eight legged visitor in their bunk. Chaos -and hilarity- ensues.


Waxer removed his helmet and sat on his bed, wiping some sweat from his brow. It felt so good to finally sit down in his bunk after a busy and boisterous day. Boil had changed into his nightclothes and lazily flopped down on his own bed.

"Hey Boil," Waxer began as he started to remove his torso armor.

"What?"

"Whoever designed the armor we wear didn't take something into consideration."

Boil turned over onto his side and propped his head up with one hand. "What is it?" he asked.

"It gets hotter than Tatooine in there and I sweat so much it's a miracle I can still hold my blaster properly."

Boil laughed and sat up. "That reminds me- did Punch ever tell you what supposedly happened to Sketch after training one time?"

Waxer could barely contain his grin. "No. What happened?"

Smiling like a nexu, Boil recounted the story. "Apparently, one time after training, Sketch's feet were so sweaty he slipped in the shower and busted his arse on the ground!"

The two clone troopers laughed, and Boil got up. "I'll be back in a bit, bro," he said as he left, and Waxer nodded in acknowledgement. As he began to remove his gauntlets and arm armor, the bald clone noticed some movement on the wall out of the corner of his eye. Either it was just the movement of a shadow, or his mind was playing tricks on him. Curious, he looked over to see what it was. What Waxer saw was not what he was expecting.

A spider that was about half the size of a clone's thumb with a large, black and beige abdomen was crawling swiftly across the wall. Waxer's eyes widened, and without a second thought he shrieked and jumped up off of his bed. He ran towards the door just as it slid open and barreled straight into Boil, causing the moustachioed trooper to drop the drink he had gotten from the mess hall.

"What's the big hurry?" Boil demanded as he recoiled slightly from the collision, spilled water soaking his socks. Trying to not hyperventilate, Waxer grabbed his comrade's shoulders. "Sp- sp- sp- sp-" he stuttered.

Boil shoved Waxer off of him. "Spit it out, bro!" he demanded.

"SPIDER!" the now hysterical clone shrieked.

Boil's expression went from angry to concerned. "Where is it?" he asked. Waxer stepped away from the door. "On the wall. Near my bed. And it's huge!" he answered, trying as hard as he could to not panic. Waxer tried to rationalize with himself. It was just a little bug, it wouldn't hurt him, it was most likely not poisonous. Most likely. He did feel a little bit ridiculous about his reaction to the situation. He had been trained to fight from the moment he was able to stand on two feet. He's faced mobs of clankers but a stupid little bug is what scared him enough to shriek and run away like a coward.

Boil picked up one of his shoes to use as a weapon and scanned the wall closest to Waxer's bed. It took him a few moments, but sure enough, he saw the eight legged beast standing still on the wall at around eye level. It was much larger than he expected it to be, but he pushed past the rising feeling of squeamishness and held his shoe above the spider, ready to squish it. But before Boil could do it, the spider took off running. Startled, he dropped his shoe and backed off but tripped over the corner of the bed and fell backwards, unceremoniously landing on his rear end. The spider had run up to a higher point on the wall, just out of reach.

"Did you kill it?" Waxer timidly asked from out in the hallway.

"Kill what?"

Waxer turned around and saw Chopper standing behind him, eyeing him suspiciously with his different coloured eyes.

Waxer paused for a moment, slightly embarrassed about the fact that Chopper might have seen, and most likely heard his freak out a few minutes prior. "There's a spider in mine and Boil's bunk."

Chopper grabbed his blaster rifle. "I'll deal with it," the scar faced clone said decisively as he pushed past Waxer and stepped into the bunk.

Boil was still on the ground. "Chopper? What in blazes-"

His question was cut off by a flurry of blaster fire. The spider skittered around the wall at top speed, avoiding all of Chopper's wildly fired shots. Waxer ran in and grabbed the rifle from the odd eyed clone. "Chopper, knock it off!" he demanded. "You're gonna hurt someone!"

Boil was cowering in the corner. "Yeah, me!"

Meanwhile, in the next bunk over, Fives and Echo had heard all the commotion and poked their heads out the door to try to get an idea of what was going on, but as soon as they heard blaster fire they knew something was up. They rushed in expecting the worst, but instead they found Waxer holding Chopper back, Boil cowering in terror, a blaster charred wall, and a spider sitting in a corner of said wall.

Although he knew what was going on thanks to all the yelling, Fives still asked, "What's going on?"

"Spider!" Waxer, Boil, and Chopper responded simultaneously.

Fives picked up the cup that Boil had dropped, removed one of his socks, then picked up the shoe that Boil had also dropped and gave it to Echo. "Bro, cover me. I'm gonna catch that spider and set it free outside."

Echo looked down at the shoe in his hand, then at Fives, who was slowly approaching the spider with the cup in one hand and sock in the other. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he mumbled to himself.

Moving swiftly, Fives held the cup underneath the spider and tried to use his sock to knock the spider in. The spider, however, had other ideas. It took the only possible escape route- Fives' hand. Said clone felt a strange prickling sensation on his fingers, and then his palm. He looked at his hand and saw something that nearly made him faint from fright. The fat, black and beige spider was running from his hand and onto his wrist, presumably to scramble up his arm. Before he could form a rational thought, Fives dropped both the sock and the cup and began to flail his arm around like a madman.

"IT'S ON ME! IT'S ON ME! GET IT OFF!" he shrieked, much louder than Waxer had shrieked earlier. Pandemonium immediately ensued. Waxer, Boil, and Chopper couldn't stop themselves from shrieking and Echo jumped up onto the bed, though unfortunately Fives' frantic flailing resulted in the spider being flung onto the bed right onto Echo's foot. Said clone also shrieked and kicked his foot, sending the spider flying through the air and onto the floor. Fives jumped up onto the bed alongside Echo, and now that the spider was scurrying across the floor, Waxer, Boil, and Chopper went scrambling in three separate directions. Chopper prayed that nobody heard him whimper in fear.

Captain Rex was patrolling the hallways of the barracks, making sure nobody was wandering around past curfew when he heard yelling and shrieking coming from Waxer and Boil's bunk. He ran in to see Fives and Echo fearhugging up on one of the beds and Waxer, Boil, and Chopper practically tripping over each other as they scrambled around the room.

"What in blazes is going on?" the Captain demanded.

"SPIDER!" the five men cried in terror. It was then that Rex saw said arachnid calmly sitting on the floor, not moving at all.

Rex closed his eyes and facepalmed. "Oh, for kriffs sake..." he growled under his breath as he walked over to the spider and slammed his foot down onto it. When the blond clone lifted his foot, all that remained of the spider was a black smear on the floor. The five troopers all breathed sighs of relief, and Fives and Echo let go of each other.

"Thank you, Captain. You saved our butts!" Waxer sounded relieved.

"That's what I'm here for," Rex gave his men a small smile for a moment, then scowled at them. "Now stop acting like children and get back to your bunks!" he ordered. The five troopers looked down in embarrassment.

"Yes, sir." The group responded sheepishly.

-Fin


End file.
